The Man who Stole the Earth
by michael1812
Summary: Donna's world is based on a paradox: you can't change the past, without a paradox machine. Based on the ending of 'Turn Left', this is a possible beginning for 'The Stolen Earth', as the expert on paradoxes and parallel, alternative timelines returns!


"Doctor, tell me!" Donna yelled, standing behind the Time Lord as he fiddled aggressively with the controls of the TARDIS.

The Doctor swiftly put on his glasses.

"What is Bad Wolf?!"

The cloister bells were echoing, pounding through the ship; the red light was hurting Donna's eyes.

"Something's wrong, something's terribly wrong," the Doctor managed to say as he desperately fiddled with cables and buttons and wires and metal.

The little rubber mallet was hanging upside down by its string, swinging back and forth in the rhythm of the heartbeat of the TARDIS.

The liquid inside the casing of the Doctor's severed hand was bubbling and lighting up.

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor exclaimed dramatically as he backed away from the console. "It can't be!"

He terrified Donna.

"Wait!" the Doctor shouted. "No! Of course! Why didn't I see?"

He danced around the console with a violent gaze, bathing in dark, red light as the TARDIS started flares when the Time Lord flicked a few switches.

The Doctor then backed away again to stare at the TARDIS's heart and engine.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Donna exclaimed, shouting over the loud noise of the TARDIS' cloister bells.

"It's a paradox machine," the Doctor said. "But it can't be!"

Then suddenly, the cloister bells grew silent and a devilish voice spoke from the shadows.

"Oh, if only I could see the look on your face now," the voice said.

Confused, and utterly frightened, the Doctor turned around to face the source of the voice; a man, glowing in a strange, flickering, blue light, who stood by the TARDIS' exit, leaning with both hands on the metal railings as he gazed at the floor.

Then he looked up.

"No," the Doctor spoke.

"Yes!" the Master yelled.

The hologram straightened his back and removed his arms from the railing to adjust his black tie.

"It has happened, hasn't it Doctor?" the Master's hologram asked. "The unthinkable."

The Master's holographic faced turned sour as it filled with rage.

"You beat me!" he shouted. "It must've happened, because otherwise you wouldn't be seeing me right now!"

"Doctor, who the hell is this?" Donna shouted.

"Don't worry, it's only a hologram." the Doctor said to Donna.

"Don't worry, it's only a hologram!" the Master shouted.

The Doctor's eyes widened, and Donna had no idea what to say.

"But he just repeated you!" Donna spoke. "If he's just a hologram, how could he have known…"

"…what he would say!" the Master finished, and then he smiled.

His eyes never once blinked or gazed away from the exact position where the Doctor was standing, the exact position where his eyes were.

"I know you too well, Doctor!" the Master spoke loudly. "You, and your companions. I wonder who is standing beside you right now. Is it Martha Jones?"

He raised his chin slightly as he gazed at the exact spot where Donna was standing now.

"Martha?" he spoke teasingly, with a higher, more childish voice. "Is that you?"

He laughed.

"Or did someone else join you on your pathetic quest to save the universe? I don't know, and I don't care really."

The blue hologram gazed at the Doctor once more.

"Because the universe is about to get a lot more dangerous, and it's all because of me!" the Master's hologram shouted. "Say it, Doctor! Say it! I know you want to!"

The Doctor said nothing.

"Well then, stay silent if that's what you want," the Master's hologram spoke.

The blue light was flickering slightly every few seconds, yet the image of the Time Lord was perfectly visible.

"But it's a lot more fun if you'd just play along."

"Don't do this," the Doctor spoke.

"There it is!" the Master exclaimed joyously. "HAHA!"

Donna kept looking at either the Master or the Doctor, not knowing who to turn to or to gaze at in this weird, disastrous situation.

"Oh, I just love to hear you beg," the Master said. "I would just die to hear you beg, over and over again."

His eyes gazed directly at the Doctor.

"But now your world will crumble, Doctor!" the Master exclaimed. "As you destroyed mine, I will destroy yours! An eye for an eye! A universe, for a universe! A hot revenge, just like I promised you!"

"What have you done?" the Doctor asked. "Tell me, what did you do?"

"Spoilers!" the Master spoke.

The TARDIS was shaking all of a sudden and the control-panel was overheating and exploding.

Sparks were flying as the TARDIS burned in midflight.

"I will tear your world apart…Doctor," the Master said. "I would tear the entire universe apart, just to get my revenge. And nothing can stop me. NOTHING!"

He laughed demonically and his hologram faded away into the roaring sounds of the TARDIS' cloister bells.

"Doctor, who was that?" Donna asked as she joined the Doctor's side. "What's he done?"

The Doctor frantically tried to save the TARDIS, fixing it and steering it at the same time.

"He must've planted a virus in the TARDIS' systems somehow!" the Doctor spoke. "It waited for the right time to activate, turning it into a paradox machine again!"

"Doctor!" Donna cried.

The TARDIS was soaring through time and space, flinging right towards a set of co-ordinates in time and space and the Doctor was helpless to stop it.

"And we're heading straight for London!" the Doctor exclaimed.


End file.
